Sweet Karma

After a few hours of tracking wild spoor, he saw them. Guns raised at their shoulders, aimed at the feeding rhinos. Kruger raised his camera and then stopped. Shouldn’t he do something? The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

His camera clicked softly, capturing the perils of life as a rhino. Then through the lens, he saw a monstrous lion lunging at the two poachers, claws and teeth sinking into shoulders and backs. Guns dropped to the ground. Kruger snapped away capturing the perils of being a poacher in the territory of the savannah’s most fearsome lion.

100 words

Rhinos are nearing extinction and Southern African countries have taken up a mission to protect our indigenous wildlife. I’m proud to say that Botswana has a zero tolerance attitude to poaching and have even committed its security forces to protect our wildlife. The current president Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama is a champion of this cause. And Prince Harry is a patron of Botswana’s conservation project: Rhino Conservation Botswana.

I think it is an ongoing debate about the place of journalists in war zones or wildlife documentaries etc. Should they just be filming or should they be helping? They need to be neutral and so helping comprises this neutrality, and yet they have their human instincts for altruism to overcome too.

Fatima, Thanks for the learning lesson. “wild spoor” really caught my attention. I had never heard nor seen the word “spoor” before. I was stuck on “Wild Boar” Great story, great message. Well having said that, I’m gonna scat.

I had meant to put a note on that word. It’s not very common word, and I suppose it originates from the dutch-afrikaans language (or similar). It’s the trail left by footprints, hair, dung or other telltale signs used in tracking animals in the wild. Thank you, Dan.